The Westhill school district and its employees are doing what they can to make up for a significant loss in state aid, but reductions will have to be made in the coming school year, Superintendent Stephen Bocciolatt said tonight.

Teachers, administrators, bus drivers and the superintendent of schools have agreed to a pay freeze for the 2011-12 school year.

The district also plans to use roughly $2.4 million of the money it keeps in reserves to help balance the upcoming budget.

But Bocciolatt said it’s not enough to make up for the mounting loss in aid. During the 2010-11 school year, Westhill schools lost $2 million in “gap elimination” state aid. Next year, the district will lose $2.5 million in state aid, Bocciolatt said.

"Over the last two, three years the cuts in state aid have been drastic," the superintendent said.

For this school year, the district dipped into its reserve fund to make up the shortfall.

“We’re going to continue to use some of our reserves, but unfortunately the governor is cutting deeper,” Bocciolatt said. “To make up for that, we can’t just use reserves. Now we do need to look at positions.”

The proposed budget calls for eliminating 12 positions, including seven through retirements or resignations, and five layoffs. Two of the layoffs come from positions paid for by grants, which will no longer be funded, Bocciolatt said.

Because some district employees have agreed to wage freezes, the layoffs were not as steep. If those employees had not made the concession, Bocciolatt said an additional six to seven positions would have been eliminated in 2011-12. The district is also asking support staff to consider not increasing their pay next year, but negotiations with those employees just recently began, the superintendent said.

The district also plans to cut 10 percent from all building and athletic budgets, eliminate a part-time safety officer contracted through OCM BOCES, cut back on summer workers, no longer have a psychologist intern that had been funded by a grant, and reduce staff development, Bocciolatt said.

Bocciolatt presented the proposed $32,121,506 spending plan at a school budget information session tonight before the school board meeting at Westhill High School.

The superintendent said the proposed budget is $469,932 less than the current budget, or a 1.4 percent decrease in spending. The budget would raise the tax levy an estimated 1.98 percent, the same as the last two years. Bocciolatt said he hoped the tax rate would be less than 2 percent.

The school board is expected to adopt the budget proposal at 7 p.m. April 11 at Walberta Park Primary School. A formal hearing on the budget will be held before district residents vote on the budget May 17.